Firefox’s has been reimagined in 2024 to be fast, modern and inviting the first time you run it and every day after. We’ve always had your back on privacy, and still do. We think the browser should be a piece of software you can rely on to have your back, pleasant to look at and working seamlessly with the web.
Is Firefox a trustworthy browser?
Firefox is considered a secure and private browser. By default, Firefox blocks known third party trackers, social media trackers, cryptomining scripts and fingerprinters from collecting your data.
Does Firefox use Google as a search engine?
Yes, Google pays hefty royalties to Mozilla/Firefox for making them the default search engine in Firefox. That deal is worth around $400 million per year (as of 2021-2022) and makes up the vast majority of Mozilla’s total revenue.
Is Firefox better than Google Chrome?
Firefox and Chrome are updated every few weeks, so it’s hard to compare them over time. At one point, Firefox has offered advantages over Chrome in terms of RAM usage, but that claim can go back and forth depending on the revision (and the potential for regressions). Microsoft Edge and Apple’s Safari have also made such claims, but in general all browsers are continually improving and beating each other.
Firefox does offer better privacy and customizability (to an extent) and is a solid browser with lots of add-ons available. If you want the best customizability on a stock browser, you should also check out Vivaldi (Chromium based).
Who owns Firefox?
Firefox is developed by the Mozilla Foundation, a US-based non-profit that operates and controls the Mozilla project.
Is Firefox based on Chromium?
No, Firefox is not based on Chromium. In fact, Firefox is one of the last major browsers that isn’t. Firefox runs on its own Quantum browser engine.
Features
A sleek, clean Firefox design backed by research
Going into the Firefox redesign, our team studied how people interact with the browser, observing their patterns and behaviors. We listened to feedback and gathered ideas from regular people who just want to have an easier experience on the web. We obsessed over distractions, extra clicks and wasted time. The resulting new design is simple, modern and fast and delivers a beautiful experience to support what people do most in Firefox.
Streamlined toolbar and menus
The toolbar is naturally where you start every web visit. It’s the place where you type a URL to go somewhere online. After web page content, it’s what you look at most in Firefox. The new toolbar is simplified and clutter-free so you get to the good stuff effortlessly.
Menus are where key Firefox actions and commands live. We’ve consolidated extra menus to reduce clutter and be more intuitive through the three bars menu in the upper right or by right-clicking to activate it on your computer screen. The new look reorganized and streamlined our menus to put the best actions quickly at your fingertips.
When privacy protections are engaged in Firefox, the shield icon in the toolbar glows subtly indicating that we’re working behind the scenes to protect you from nosy trackers. Fun fact: Firefox has blocked more than 6 trillion — that’s trillion with a T — trackers since we rolled out enhanced tracking protection, stopping thousands of companies from viewing your online activity.. We’re talking about tracking cookies, social media trackers, fingerprinters, cryptominers and more. Go ahead and click on the shield to see who and what Firefox is blocking… you might be surprised by what you find out.
A new look for tabs
Based on our research, we found out that more than half of you have 4+ tabs open all the time, and some of you have more, a lot more. And we feel that! Tab as much as you like, friends. Tabs got a makeover so they are now gently curved and float above the toolbar. It’s an exciting change that also serves as a reminder that tabs aren’t stationary. So grab those tabs, move them around and organize them as you like. Tabs also got a glow-up to be a touch brighter when active.
What’s New
New
Microsoft PlayReady encrypted media playback is now being rolled out to select sites on Windows. Through this support, we are gradually rolling out a 1080p baseline and 4K Ultra HD support with key streaming partners. An added benefit is that viewers get less battery drain and better performance when streaming their favorite movies and shows.
Wide Color Gamut WebGL is now available for Windows and macOS users! With this support, Firefox is bringing a richer, more vivid range of colors to the videos, games, and images on your screen. This implementation currently supports wider color (P3) profiles in 8-bit.
WebRender hardware accelerated rendering is now enabled for most SVG filter primitives, improving performance for certain graphics-heavy content. Accelerated filters are feBlend, feColorMatrix, feComponentTransfer, feComposite, feDropShadow, feFlood, feGaussianBlur, feMerge and feOffset.
Added support for macOS’ new screen and window sharing selection features on macOS 15 and later. Support for macOS 14 will be added in a future release.
The macOS session resume feature has been enhanced. Firefox will now automatically relaunch if it was open before a system restart, like after an OS update.
Firefox now blocks third-party cookie access when Enhanced Tracking Protection’s Strict mode is enabled.
Fixed
Various security fixes.
Changed
As a follow-up to our work to upgrade mixed content starting with Firefox 127, HTTP-favicons will now also be blocked if they can not be received over HTTPS instead.
The Copy Without Site Tracking option is now grayed out when no known tracking parameters are found within the link. Additionally, more tracking parameter support has been added for websites such as LinkedIn and Shopee. Please report tracking parameters that aren’t removed by filing a bug in Bugzilla.
Previous Release Notes:
Security Vulnerability fixed in Firefox 131.0.2, Firefox ESR 128.3.1, Firefox ESR 115.16.1
Previous Release Notes:
Fixed an issue causing some sites to not load when connecting via HTTP/2. (Bug 1908161, Bug 1909666)
Fixed collapsed table rows not appearing when expected in some situations. (Bug 1907789)
Fixed the Windows on-screen keyboard potentially concealing the web page when displayed. (Bug 1907766)
Starting with Firefox 127, we’re enabling a new anti-tracking feature in Nightly: Bounce Tracking Protection. This protection detects bounce trackers based on redirect behavior and periodically purges their cookies & site data to prevent tracking.
Starting with Firefox for Android 128, the new tab strip feature for tablets is available for testing in Nightly builds! This enhancement makes tab management more intuitive and efficient, providing a smoother browsing experience for devices in that form factor. Please share your feedback on Google Play and/or the Mozilla Connect post to help us improve it further.
Firefox now supports playback of protected content from streaming sites like Netflix while in Private Browsing mode.
Firefox now has a simpler and more unified dialog for clearing user data. In addition to streamlining data categories, the new dialog also provides insights into the site data size corresponding to the selected time range.
New
The Copy Without Site Tracking option can now remove parameters from nested URLs. It also includes expanded support for blocking over 300 tracking parameters from copied links, including those from major shopping websites. Keep those trackers away when sharing links!
Firefox now supports Content-encoding: zstd (zstandard compression). This is an alternative to broti and gzip compression for web content, and can provide higher compression levels for the same CPU used, or conversely lower server CPU use to get the same compression. This is heavily used on sites such as Facebook.
Catalan is now available in Firefox Translations.
Enabled AV1 hardware decode acceleration on macOS for M3 Macs.
Telemetry was added to create an aggregate count of searches by category to broadly inform search feature development. These categories are based on 20 high-level content types, such as “sports,” “business,” and “travel”. This data will not be associated with specific users and will be collected using OHTTP to remove IP addresses as potentially identifying metadata. No profiling will be performed, and no data will be shared with third parties. (read more)
Nvidia RTX Video Super Resolution (“VSR”) is now available in Firefox. RTX VSR enhances and sharpens lower resolution video when upscaled to higher resolutions and also removes blocky artifacts commonly visible on low bitrate streamed video. VSR requires at least a 20-series or higher Nvidia RTX GPU, Microsoft Windows 10/11 64-bit, and Nvidia driver version R530 or higher. The feature can be enabled in the Nvidia control panel.
Nvidia RTX Video HDR is now available in Firefox. RTX Video HDR automatically converts SDR video to vibrant HDR10 in real time, letting you enjoy video with improved clarity on your HDR10 panel. It requires at least a 20-series Nvidia RTX GPU, Microsoft Windows 10/11 64-bit, and Nvidia driver version 550 or higher. The feature can be enabled in the Nvidia control panel.
Fixed
Various security fixes.
Changed
The URL Paste Suggestion feature added in Fx125 was temporarily disabled while the team investigates a potential performance issue. The feature will be re-enabled in a future release once the performance issue is addressed.
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Last updated:
October 28, 2024
OS:
Windows, macOS, Linux, Android
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